Saturday, March 28, 2009

March 27, 2009 -- 2nd-Alarm Special Call for San Jose Fire

Support Unit 2 Makes Its Inaugural Run

Well, the big day finally arrived! After being in service for a week, our new Support Unit 2 has logged its first run.

Fire Associates was paged on Friday, March 27 at 10:34 P.M. to a house fire in central San Jose. Located at 1988 Hicks Avenue, the fire consumed a bedroom and its contents. Tragically, the lone occupant of the home was in the bedroom and died in the fire.

John Whiteside responded to the call in Support Unit 2. He was met on scene by FASCV member John Whitaker. Together, they put the new rig into action. Although there were some "getting acquainted" teething pains for the new vehicle, it performed flawlessly.

Initially, when the generator was started up, the area lights did not work. It took a minute or two to realize that the circuit breakers needed to be turned on (duh!). In addition, the two John's were not used to setting up the coffee service on a folding table instead of the tailgate and there were the expected, "Hey John, do you know where......?" type of issues. It took a little longer to find and run extension cords as well as locate a 3-way adapter that was needed, but, the whole operation will run smoother next time.

Firefighters had nothing but admiration for the vehicle and the effort by FASCV to make it a reality. There were many "tours" given throughout the evening.

The night was a comfortable 56 degrees with no wind, but coffee was still a popular item as firefighters waited for Homicide officers to finish their investigation and the Coroner's office to remove the remains. The Support Unit was finally released at 1:30 A.M.